Category: News (Page 13 of 40)

race-by-race wrapups

TAFC – INDY 2021

September 6, 2021 / Todd Veney

On the strength of two absolutely killer qualifying runs at the NHRA U.S. Nationals, Annie Whiteley, who’s always performed well there but had never quite gone all the way, surged into the quarterfinals again this year. The J&A Service/YNot Racing driver, who’s staged for the Indy Top Alcohol Funny Car final three times (2013-15-16), the semi’s six times, and has never failed to win at least one first round, again went rounds on drag racing’s grandest stage.

The lengthy weekend got off to a promising start Thursday afternoon when Whiteley’s team, led by veteran crew chief Mike Strasburg, posted back-to-back 5.48s, both at exactly 268.92 mph, which ended up standing, for the second year in a row, for top speed of the entire event, including Jegs Allstars competition. After an aborted 11.43 on a final attempt cut short by low-gear shake, Whiteley still clearly held the upper hand entering eliminations.

Her first-round opponent: surprise 2020 Winternationals winner Aryan Rochon, who, after spending a couple weeks with the Sean Bellemeur/Steve Boggs/Tony Bartone juggernaut learning the ins and outs of running a top-flight Alcohol Funny Car team, presented a far greater threat than he would have just a month ago. Qualified 13 spots behind Whiteley, Rochon, who refused to lift in the first round at Atlanta and slammed into the wall at half-track, backed off this time when his car made a move around half-track and slowed to a 6.39 at just 166 mph. Going exactly 100 mph faster, Whiteley crossed the finish line well ahead of him for a smooth 5.52/266 win.

Opposite Andy Bohl in the delayed quarterfinals, in a rematch of the 2015 final, Whiteley was undone by traction problems and ultimately had to click it off to a disappointing 8.69 at 105 mph. Bohl had ignition problems but still moved on with a 5.64/263, shooting ducks all the way through low gear.

“We were all set up to run that round at 9:30 in the morning – that’s when they told us it was going to be,” Whiteley said. “The conditions were a lot better then than when we finally ran, and we kind of hem-hawed around about changing the transmission but didn’t. We probably should have. Right after we ran, Mike said, ‘I knew we should’ve gone back to that other ratio.’ “

PRO MOD – INDY 2021

September 6, 2021 / Todd Veney

At the 67th annual NHRA U.S. Nationals, the seventh and by far the most prestigious event on the 11-race 2021 NHRA Pro Mod tour, versatile Jim Whiteley powered into the quarterfinals for the third race in a row. He made it into the field on just a single qualifying attempt – everybody did.

For the first time in the history of the sport’s biggest race, qualifying consisted of exactly one session – not just for Pro Mod, but also for Top Fuel, Funny Car, Pro Stock, and Pro Stock Motorcycle. Whiteley made the most of the rain-shortened format and did it under particularly difficult circumstances: not a single car ahead of him had made it downtrack under power, and one of them, supercharged door-car veteran Rick Hord, crashed hard into both walls right in front of him.

Putting it out of his mind, Whiteley cruised to a smooth 5.90 at 243 mph that propelled him straight to the top of the provisional grid and eventually settled him into the sixth spot on the ladder. That pitted him against perennial contender Khalid alBalooshi, the third third-ranked driver of 2020, whom he absolutely drilled on a first-round holeshot in Denver and who qualified 11th here with a 6.25/236 mph.

Whiteley, focused this year on the burgeoning Mid-West Drag Racing Series, where he’s led the Pro Mod standings for much of the season, was making just his fourth NHRA start of 2021, having skipped Atlanta, Charlotte, and Brainerd. Again, he overwhelmed Balooshi in a lopsided wire-to-wire first-round win. Balooshi was more or less on time with a respectable .068 light, but Whiteley had a decided edge with a .038 and moved on with his best run all weekend, 5.89/240, trailing smoke across the finish line.

Docked 5 points for an oildown infraction even though what little oil spilled was confined to the return road, Whiteley faced teammate and reigning series champ Steve Jackson, who seems to race him every other weekend, in the quarterfinals. There, a promising outing ended with a whimper when Whiteley’s beautiful Yenko/SC Camaro sat motionless as the Tree came down.

Handcuffed by mechanical problems before he ever staged, Whiteley rolled into the beams in the unlikely event that experienced “Stevie Fast,” the defending U.S. Nationals champ, red-lighted or crossed the centerline. He didn’t, of course, advancing uncontested with a 5.81 at 246 mph. “I knew we were done before we rolled up there,” Whiteley said. “The whole solenoid popped off, and there was no way I was going to try to make a run like that. It sucked – especially after everybody had worked their asses off all weekend.”

TAFC – GREAT BEND 2021

August 22, 2021 / Todd Veney

Annie Whiteley, who began 2021 the way she begins every season – by dominating the Belle Rose Regional – trounced Bryan Brown, whose only career win also came in Belle Rose, in the first round of the Mid-West Drag Racing Series’ Great Bend Nationals. At historic SRCA Drag Strip in Great Bend, Kan., home of drag racing’s first national event, the 1955 NHRA Nationals, she came up a round short of yet another final-round appearance, falling in the semi’s to incoming points leader Sean Bellemeur.

Racing on the Kansas prairie for the first time in her 10-year career, Whiteley qualified the J&A Service/YNot Racing Camaro with a 3.71 – the exact same E.T. husband Jim recorded in his classic split-window Corvette for the top spot in Pro Mod, and, coincidentally, two-hundredths of a second from the 3.73 twin sister Anita ran to qualify No. 1 in Top Dragster. In Alcohol Funny Car, Annie’s 3.71 was good only for the No. 4 spot, behind Sean Bellemeur (No. 1, 3.64) eventual runner-up Chris Marshall (No. 2, 3.65), and Colorado’s Bill Bernard (No. 3, 3.69).

Separated by one qualifying spot and just eight-thousandths of a second – 3.713 to 3.721 – No. 4 Whiteley vs. No. 5 Brown should’ve been the closest matchup of the first round. It wasn’t. Whiteley won it in a landslide with the second-quickest, second-fastest run of the entire frame, a 3.68 at 206 mph that easily handled Brown’s distant 3.85 at 196.

Another 3.68 in the semifinals would have propelled Whiteley into another final – Bellemeur, the defending series champion, managed just a 3.84, coasting across the finish line at 189 mph. Unfortunately for Whiteley and crew chief Mike Strasburg, their powerful machine had already dropped back, rolling through with a 7.18 at 66 mph on the eighth-mile Great Bend course. Next up for the YNot team is the most prestigious event in drag racing, the NHRA U.S. Nationals, where Whiteley has made three finals and six semifinals in eight career starts.

PRO MOD – GREAT BEND 2021

August 22, 2021 / Todd Veney

Stopped short of the breakthrough first Mid-West Drag Racing Series victory that remains just outside his grasp, incoming MWDRS points leader Jim Whiteley still fared well at the Great Bend National, well enough to maintain his nearly yearlong points lead. He led all qualifiers, advanced to the semifinals, and left the Kansas plains in first place – right where he was when he pulled through the SRCA Drag Strip gates.

Whiteley, who made it to the final at Ferris and the semi’s at Tulsa, towered over all Pro Mod qualifiers with a 3.71 on the eighth-mile course, just ahead of No. 2 qualifier Jon Stouffer, who survived a violent crash into both walls in eliminations, and No. 3 Joey Oksas, who would go on to collect his first major event title. Whiteley pounded James Roberts in the first round of eliminations and 2019 series champ Aaron Wells in the quarterfinals before falling in the semi’s to series MWDRS founder Keith Haney.

In the opening round, Whiteley drilled Roberts on the Tree, .051 to .138, and charged to a winning 3.76 at more than 200 mph to easily advance. In the quarters, Wells provided much more resistance with a competitive 3.80 at 199 mph, but the J&A/YNot Racing driver had him all the way with a decidedly better reaction time and nearly duplicated his qualifying time with a 3.72/201.

Whiteley’s best shot at his first MWDRS crown evaporated in the semifinals when he came out on the wrong end of a holeshot decision opposite the nitrous-powered “Black Mamba” Camaro of Mr. “You Know Who I Am” himself, Haney, 3.72/202 to 3.71/201. “I went in early – earlier than I probably should have – and it messed me up,” Whiteley said. “I knew it was over when I left.”

PSM – POMONA 2021

August 2, 2021 / Todd Veney

After a soaring semifinal finish last weekend at the Sonoma Nationals, easily one of the finest outings of his six-year Pro Stock Motorcycle career, Cory Reed plummeted back to earth at the world-famous Los Angeles County Fairplex.

Competing at Pomona for the first time since his 2016 Rookie of the Year campaign and just the second time ever, Reed struggled all weekend with the facility’s notoriously uneven surface. “This place is too bumpy,” he said. “I know it’s Pomona and everything, but they only run here once or twice a year, it’s got a bad crown, and there’s just not enough rubber. It sucks.”

Side by side early against teammate and best bud Joey Gladstone in Friday’s lone qualifying session, Reed slowed to an off-pace 7.16 at 182 mph when the track seemed to drag him toward the centerline. He found himself in that same barren portion of the course Saturday afternoon and drifted as close to the line as possible without crossing it on a coasting 7.33/157. Then in Q3, his last chance to improve, Reed’s powerful Suzuki Hayabusa porpoised off the line, spun, finally grabbed hold of the track, and sprinted to a 7.03/193, good for the No. 13 spot, the second-worst he’s qualified all season, ahead of only Charlotte, where he was 14th.

In the first round against No. 4 qualifier Scotty Pollacheck, who he just beat at Denver, Reed was off like a shot with a .012 reaction time, but again he had to lift downtrack when his bike seemed to take on a mind of its own and lost, 6.88/198 to 7.12/178. “When it spins the tire on the leave like that, the bike always wants to go left,” he said. “The shift light’s already on, but you know you can’t hit the button. It’s hard to ignore it – it’s right there in your face – but you’ve got to at least make it 60 feet before you hit 2nd gear. This 4-valve makes a lot of power but no torque, so when the RPM drops, it doesn’t just roll out of it like a Buell does – you really have to pay attention and keep the motor up there.”

PSM – SONOMA 2021

July 26, 2021 / Todd Veney

At always-fast Sonoma Raceway in the wine country north of San Francisco, veteran Cory Reed enjoyed perhaps the third-best weekend of his Pro Stock Motorcycle career, behind only his runner-up finishes at Maple Grove in 2016 and Charlotte earlier this year. All he did was take out one of the most prolific riders of all time, many-time world champ Eddie Krawiec, in the first round and surprise No. 1 qualifier Angie Smith in the quarterfinals for his fifth semifinal finish ever.

Right when conditions theoretically were their best, Friday evening in the opening qualifying session, Reed’s bike bogged off the line, killing his E.T. (7.14) but not keeping him from a solid speed, 197 mph. Early the next afternoon, he improved dramatically to a 6.83/198 for the No. 8 spot, and, three hours later, he unloaded the best run of his entire career, a 6.79/198 – his first official run in the 6.70s – alongside eventual winner Karen Stoffer, who clocked a 6.75 for the provisional pole.

When eliminations commenced, Reed actually had lane choice over always-favored Krawiec, who had just reached the final last week in Denver. The former Rookie of the Year was disappointed with his .098 reaction time, but when Krawiec faltered downtrack, Reed shot ahead for a winning 6.84/197, fighting to keep his bike off the centerline the whole way. “Seems like I never get any luck,” he said, “but I guess I’m lucky today.”

Fortune smiled on Reed Motorsports’ team leader again in the quarterfinals when Smith, who qualified No. 1 for just the second time ever with a career-best 6.73, slowed to a 7.63/129 after assuming a commanding early lead. Reed left with a second straight .090-something reaction time but won in spite of himself with a 6.83/197 while she reluctantly sat up in the seat and slowed. “I should go give her a hug,” a subdued Reed said with a wry smile immediately after dismounting. “I almost feel guilty for beating her. I mean, she had me.”

In the semifinals, opposite many-time world champ Andrew Hines, who has a better head-to-head record against him (8-1) than he does against any other rider, Reed picked up to an .080 light but still bowed out, 6.76/202 to 6.83/192. “I’m not doing too good on the Tree right now, am I?” he asked, a little embarrassed. “I guess I need to stay out of my own head on the starting line.”

PRO MOD – DENVER 2021

July 19, 2021 / Todd Veney

Any Pro Mod fan could’ve predicted exactly what was going to happen when the Tree flashed green for Jim Whiteley and Khalid AlBalooshi in the first round of the Mile-High Nationals: Whiteley would move first.

He did. By a lot. Whiteley, who’s been winning on holeshots all year, left on AlBalooshi, who’s been losing on holeshots since he started driving, by a full tenth (.030 to .137), stayed off the centerline without overcorrecting when things got a little hairy downtrack, and hung on for a huge holeshot win, 6.11 to 6.03. Both passed the 330-foot mark with 2.62-second times, and though AlBalooshi was going 3 mph faster by the time they hit half-track, 186 mph to 183, Whiteley was never headed in a satisfying if not particularly close (.033- second margin of victory) decision.

Back in the same lane 90 minutes later for the quarterfinals, Whiteley, who always performs well at his home track (including six straight Top Alcohol Dragster victories in the 2010s), fell to teammate “Stevie Fast” Jackson the same way he’d taken out AlBalooshi: on the starting line. With a .041 reaction time, the YNot driver was anything but late, but Jackson, winner of the past two NHRA Pro Mod championships, nipped him, 6.08/233 to 6.07/230, in a doubly important match – it was for a bye to the final. Whiteley, who ousted Jackson on a holeshot three weeks ago at Norwalk, came up short this time by 12-thousandths of a second – about two feet at the stripe.

Two-thirds of the way through qualifying, Whiteley’s immaculate YNot/J&A Service Camaro was still mired in the 6-teens. Just over the hill from the world-famous Red Rocks Amphitheatre, he charged down the Bandimere Speedway course Friday evening in the first qualifying session to a 6.14 at 229 mph and delivered a nearly identical 6.15 the next afternoon. It was Saturday evening in last-shot qualifying that the prospect of going rounds in eliminations Sunday got much more realistic when Whiteley took a quantum leap forward with a 6.06 for the No. 7 spot.

PSM – DENVER 2021

July 19, 2021 / Todd Veney

Ninth in the standings coming into this race and hot off a productive pre-race test session, Cory Reed hit Denver for the Mile-High Nationals and battled through two tough days of qualifying to go rounds on raceday. Amazingly, he ran the same E.T. at the same speed in all three sessions: 7.22 at 184 mph – 7.220/184.42 Friday night, 7.223/184.65 Saturday afternoon, and 7.226/184.90 under the lights Saturday night.

Just for the hell of it Saturday afternoon, Reed showed up at the starting line bald. Not Michael Jordan bald. More like Terry Bradshaw bald – the ol’ male-pattern-baldness look. “It’s working for Matt Smith,” he joked. “Who knows? Maybe it’ll work for me. But I might have to cut off the rest of it.” Sure enough, Reed’s head was completely shaved when he rolled under the tower Sunday morning to face Smith’s teammate, reigning U.S. Nationals champ Scotty Pollacheck, in the first round of eliminations.

In the first pair of the round, Reed staged first, left first, passed the 60-foot clocks first with a nice 1.06-second time, and held off Pollacheck for a huge win. The PSE rider outran Pollacheck, too, with his best run of the weekend to that point, 7.208 to 7.213. At the finish line, the bikes were separated by just 15-thousandths of a second.

That put Reed up against Smith, the incoming points leader and winner of the most recent event on tour, Norwalk. He crashed into the teens with a fantastic 7.19 but fell to the 7.14 of Smith, who tied the 7.11 track record five times over the course of the weekend and went on to win the event. Again, Reed had it at the 330-foot mark and could have won on a holeshot with the same .047 reaction time he had against Pollacheck, but a .093 left him just short opposite Smith’s .099.

“We still had a great weekend,” Reed said philosophically. “I just like going rounds. We had a lot of fun and learned a lot.” Heading into Sonoma, where everybody should be deep into the six-second zone and the fastest bikes consistently over 200 mph, Reed remains in the Top 10, just behind Karen Stoffer, who made her NHRA debut 25 years ago at this weekend, and teammate Joey Gladstone, who narrowly red-lighted in the first round.

TAFC – NORWALK 2021

June 28, 2021 / Todd Veney

You can’t cut a light when the clutch pedal doesn’t feel right and you definitely can’t win when your blower belt decides it’s had enough halfway through high gear. Thwarted by both, Annie Whiteley pulled out of the Summit Nationals with a disappointing quarterfinal finish despite never making a bad run all weekend.

The J&A Service/YNot Racing driver sped to a 5.60 at 267 mph Friday afternoon in the first of what turned out to be just two Top Alcohol Funny Car qualifying sessions, and followed with a 5.57 at 266, settling into the No. 5 position on the 15-car grid. In the first round, home-state veteran Tony Bogolo offered little resistance, running a polite 5.73/251 that she easily overpowered with a 5.57/267. Whiteley advanced, and on the surface all was good, but .115 reaction times weren’t going to carry her to victory.

“The car kept lurching when I’d go to roll in,” she said. “You’re bearing down as hard as you can on the clutch and the brake, and every time you’d rev it up, it was like, ‘Whoa,’ and you’d have to shove down harder on the clutch and pull harder on the brake, and how can you cut a light like that?”

Sunday afternoon in the rain-delayed quarterfinals, Whiteley was well on her way to another 5.50-something against eventual winner DJ Cox’s, 5.57/264 until the blower belt broke, slowing her to a 5.73 at just 213 mph and costing her any chance at winning. “I don’t want to jinx us, but that’s the first blower belt we’ve broke in probably six years,” she said.

But the problem right now isn’t blower belts – it’s the uneasy relationship between the clutch pedal and Whiteley’s left foot. “I need enough air gap so the car doesn’t go anywhere when I try to roll in,” she said. “Jim told me, ‘Annie, you should be able to roll that car into the beams with two fingers on the brake handle.’ It’s just so frustrating sometimes. Doug Gordon’s team was nice enough to give us a base setup with everything you need to get started with a Molinari clutch, and I really hope that works because we’ve got to get this figured out.”

PRO MOD – NORWALK 2021

June 28, 2021 / Todd Veney

In the first round of the Summit Nationals, in one of the biggest rounds of his career, two-time NHRA Pro Mod winner Jim Whiteley outdrove the toughest possible opponent: his own crew chief, reigning NHRA world champion Stevie Jackson. Whiteley qualified just 12th and “Stevie Fast” was seven spots ahead in the No. 5 position, but Whiteley had this one all the way – just as Jackson feared he would.

“Stevie said before we went up there, ‘I tuned this thing to run as good as my car,’ ” Whiteley said. “He told [his crew chief] Billy [Stocklin], ‘This thing better run good, because my driver [Whiteley] is better than your driver [himself]. I hollered at Stevie’s crew in the lanes, ‘Look that thing over really good because this is the last time you’re gonna be up here this weekend.’ “

It was. Jackson and Whiteley staged almost simultaneously, Jackson was on time with a .043 reaction time, but Whiteley, one of the few Pro Mod drivers who doesn’t have a losing record against “Stevie Fast,” left him sitting there with a .029. “We left, and I didn’t see him,” said Whiteley, who won Pro Mod at Houston in 2016 and 2018. “Second gear, third gear … I still didn’t see him, and I started to think, ‘We might just have a shot at this deal…’ ” He got him on a holeshot, 5.85-5.84, and as they flashed across the finish line at nearly 250 mph, the cars were separated by a mere two-thousandths of a second.

In the quarterfinals, mechanical difficulties dragged Whiteley’s J&A Service/YNot Racing ’69 Camaro quarter-mile car through the beams opposite veteran Doug Winters, bringing to an end a solid showing highlighted by full pulls in all three qualifying sessions (5.93-5.87-5.87) and perhaps his biggest round-win since the Houston final in April 2018.

“We aren’t running all the NHRA races this year,” said Whiteley, who was making just his second appearance on the NHRA tour this season. “We’re not in the hunt – we’re just here to play. But from now on, this car is going to be as quick as Stevie’s and Brandon [Snider]’s cars. It better be.”